Caracas:

Venezuela’s former presidential opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez has left for Spain in the wake of the South American country’s contested election, Venezuelan and Spanish officials said on Saturday night after a day of rising diplomatic tensions.

Gonzalez, 75, who ran against President Nicolas Maduro in July, left after “voluntarily seeking refuge in the Spanish embassy in Caracas several days ago,” Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez posted on Instagram.

“Edmundo Gonzalez has taken off from Caracas heading to Spain on a Spanish Air Force plane,” Spain’s Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares posted on X, saying Madrid was responding to a request from Gonzalez.

Gonzalez’s exit from Venezuela is the latest political development since the country’s election on July 28. Democracies around the world have criticized the Venezuelan government’s handling of the vote, which election officials and its top court say was won by Maduro.

Venezuela’s opposition say the election resulted in a resounding victory for Gonzalez, and published vote tallies online that they say show he won.

This week prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for Gonzalez in connection to the online publication of the tallies, accusing him of usurping functions, falsifying public documents and conspiracy, among other charges.

Earlier on Saturday, Venezuela’s government revoked Brazil’s authorization to represent Argentine interests in the country, including administering the embassy where six opposition figures are sheltering.

Venezuela broke relations with Argentina after the presidential election. Brazil, like Colombia and Mexico, has asked the Venezuelan government to publish the full results of the vote.

The government has not done so and the country’s electoral authority said Maduro won re-election for a third term.

In a statement, Venezuela said the decision, effective immediately, was due to proof that the embassy was being used to plan assassination attempts against Maduro and Rodriguez.

Brazil said it had received the communication that its authorization had been revoked “with surprise.” Argentina said it rejected the “unilateral” decision. Both countries urged Maduro to respect the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

“Any attempt to invade or kidnap asylum seekers who remain in our official residence will be harshly condemned by the international community,” Argentina said in a statement. “Actions like these reinforce the conviction that in Maduro’s Venezuela, fundamental human rights are not respected.”

A Brazilian diplomatic source said on Saturday afternoon that Venezuela had assured Brazil it would not invade the embassy.

In its statement, Brazil insisted it would remain in custody and defense of Argentine interests until Argentina indicated another state acceptable to Venezuela to do so.

“The Brazilian government highlights in this context, under the terms of the Vienna Conventions, the inviolability of the facilities of the Argentine diplomatic mission,” it said, adding that it housed six Venezuelan asylum seekers, assets and archives.

The escalation in the spat between the South American countries was first reported by Reuters.

In March, six people sought asylum in the Argentine embassy in Caracas after a prosecutor ordered their arrest on charges including conspiracy. Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has denied the allegations against her collaborators.

On Friday night, some opposition members in the Argentine residence reported on their X accounts that the building was under surveillance and had no electricity. They posted videos showing men dressed in black and patrols from the government intelligence agency, SEBIN.

Argentina’s Foreign Ministry asked the International Criminal Court on Friday to issue an arrest warrant against Maduro and other senior government officials for events that occurred after the elections.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Venezuelan nationals protest against the results of their country’s presidential election, in Quito, Ecuador, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2024
| Photo Credit: AP

On July 28, Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro returned to power after a controversial election, whose results have been disputed by the Opposition and several countries. The unpopularity of Mr. Maduro’s regime is not under question as he oversaw an economy that descended into a free fall in his 11 years in power. The country’s annual inflation rate skyrocketed to five digits, along with shortages of basic supplies. It slid down the democracy index and touched new highs on bribery indices. Humanitarian and economic conditions have triggered a mass exodus, with as many as 7.7 million Venezuelans fleeing the country.

Chart 1 shows how Venezuela’s GDP (in current prices) started declining since Mr. Maduro’s ascent to power in 2013. According to the IMF, Venezuela’s real GDP saw the most protracted contraction in modern history during the last decade. Between 2013 and 2021, the economy contracted by 75%, the largest for any country not at war. 

Chart appears incomplete? Click to remove AMP mode

Chart 2 plots Venezuela’s annual inflation rate. The country’s inflation spiralled to a peak of 65,374% resulting in hyperinflation in 2018 and remained in more than three digits for nine years.

Chart 3 shows how Venezuela fares on two indices maintained by the V-dem (Varieties of Democracy) Institute — the liberal democracy index and the executive corruption index.

Since 1999 — which heralded the era of Chavismo with Mr. Maduro’s predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez, coming to power — the country dropped on the liberal democracy index and underwent a rise on the corruption index. As of 2023, V-dem classifies the country as an electoral autocracy. Mr. Chavez’s rise coincided with a popular movement against the entrenched two-party system which was seen as failing to empower the masses. His regime sought to redistribute revenues from its flourishing petroleum extraction industry into welfare and this ensured that the country’s dependence on this industry became even more entrenched.

Venezuela sits on the world’s largest crude reserves. As Chart 4 shows, Venezuela’s petroleum exports formed about 80% of the country’s exports and remained in the range, 70% to 96%, between 1960 and 2023, making the country a “petrostate”. Petroleum exports also amount to 14% of the country’s GDP (as of 2023) and until 2019 remained over and above the 20% mark.

Chart 4 shows Venezuela’s petrol exports as a share of total exports and GDP (in %).

However, the production of crude oil has reduced significantly over time. Compared to 1973, when the country was producing 3.36 million barrels a day, the figure slipped to 0.78 million in 2023 (Chart 5). The number of active oil rigs in the country fell from 221 in 2014 to just three in 2023. Venezuela was the highest producer of crude among OPEC countries until 1969. But as of 2023, it ranks 9th in crude production. The drastic production cuts are directly linked to the sanctions imposed by the Donald Trump-led U.S. regime in 2017, a time when oil prices recovered globally.

Chart 5 shows Venezuela’s crude production (in 1,000 barrels a day), and active oil rigs against the nominal price of oil over time.

For many years, the trend of Venezuela’s exports and imports of goods and services followed that of oil prices (Chart 6). However, the current spike in oil prices has not seen a commensurate rise in exports and imports due to the imposition of sanctions by the U.S. Since 2023, following the Barbados agreement, the U.S. eased some of its sanctions and this allowed an increase in exports. However, the subsequent measures by the Mr. Maduro regime to ban Opposition candidates resulted in a re-imposition of sanctions.

Chart 6 shows Venezuela’s exports ($ million) and imports ($ million) against the oil prices ($/bb)

Source: OPEC, IMF, V-Dem

Also read: Nicolas Maduro | Chavism’s designated successor

Venezuela’s flag flutters over the Federal Legislative Palace, in Caracas, Venezuela on August 15, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Venezuela’s CNE electoral council, under fire after declaring a widely rejected election victory for President Nicolas Maduro, on Wednesday (August 14, 2024) described a U.N. report disputing the outcome as “rife with lies.”

The CNE proclaimed Mr. Maduro the winner with 52% of votes cast in a July 28 poll, without providing a detailed breakdown.

Mr. Maduro’s victory has been rejected by the opposition, the United States, European Union and several Latin American countries.

Anti-Maduro protests in Venezuela have claimed 25 lives so far, with dozens injured and more than 2,400 arrested.

A preliminary report published Tuesday by a panel of U.N. elections experts found the CNE “fell short of the basic transparency and integrity measures.”

The CNE hit back Wednesday, saying the U.N. report was “rife with lies and contradictions” and insisting a “cyber-terrorist attack” has prevented it from disclosing a full breakdown of polling-station-level results after what it termed an “impeccable and transparent electoral process.”

The CNE website has been down since election day.

Venezuela’s foreign ministry has also rejected the U.N. report.

Former opposition leader Enrique Marquez, who also once ran against Mr. Maduro and himself served on the CNE, said Wednesday he would request the prosecutor’s office to launch a criminal investigation into his former colleagues on the electoral council.

Mexico insisted the solution to Venezuela’s post-election crisis could be resolved by it alone.

“This is a matter that belongs to Venezuelans, and what we want is for there to be a peaceful solution to disputes, which has always been our foreign policy,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told reporters.

He said he had no immediate plans for renewed contact with his fellow leftist leaders in Brazil and Colombia to discuss the crisis, saying he would await a ruling by Venezuela’s Supreme Justice Tribunal, which Mr. Maduro had asked to certify the election outcome.

‘Coup d’etat’

The opposition says its own tally of polling-station-level results showed Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, a 74-year-old retired diplomat, had won by a wide margin.

Gonzalez Urrutia and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who was barred from running by Mr. Maduro-friendly state institutions, are in hiding after the president accused them of seeking to foment a “coup d’etat” and incite “civil war.”

On Wednesday, Gonzalez Urrutia said the report from the UN panel and an earlier one from the U.S.-based Carter Center “confirm the lack of transparency in the announced results and confirm the veracity of” the opposition’s published ballots, “which demonstrate our indisputable victory.”

A day earlier, the South American country’s national assembly started considering a package of laws to tighten regulations on non-governmental organizations — described by the regime as a “facade for the financing of terrorist actions.”

Other measures seek to increase government oversight over social media, accused of promoting “hate,” and to punish “fascism” — a term often used by Mr. Maduro in relation to the opposition and other detractors.

Debate in the single-chamber assembly is due to resume Thursday.

Since coming to power in 2013, Mr. Maduro has overseen an economic collapse that has seen more than seven million Venezuelans flee the country, as GDP plunged 80% in a decade.

Mr. Maduro’s last election in 2018 was also rejected as a sham by dozens of countries.

Caracas:

The ruling that Venezuela’s Supreme Court will deliver on the disputed presidential election will be “final,” the body’s president Carylsia Rodriguez said Saturday at a hearing on the July 28 vote.

The court “is continuing the assessment begun on August 5, 2024, with a view to producing the final ruling… Its decisions are final and binding,” said Rodriguez.

Most observers say the high court is loyal to the government of Nicolas Maduro, which has claimed a narrow victory in the election.

Opposition leaders insist that their candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, won overwhelmingly, and they have produced what they say are official tallies from voting sites as evidence.

Maduro himself summoned the high court on August 1 to “validate” a victory that opponents insist was fraudulent.

The court heard from all candidates, including Maduro, this week — except for Gonzalez Urrutia, who has said he fears arrest.

He has made no public appearances in more than a week, while key opposition leader Maria Corina Machado — a past presidential candidate who was banned from running this time — has said she is living in hiding.

The National Electoral Council (CNE) ratified Maduro’s victory on August 2, saying he had won 52 percent of the vote, but it refused to release exact tallies from election sites, saying the data had been hacked.

The opposition, in contrast, published printed tallies — their legitimacy denied by Maduro — that they say show Gonzalez Urrutia receiving 67 percent of the vote.

The opposition and many observers say the alleged hacking of the results is a government invention to keep from having to publish election documents.

Maduro on Friday rejected those accusations, saying there had been “brutal” hacking, with “30 million attacks per minute on the electronic systems of the CNE and of Venezuela.”

Opposition lawyer Perkins Rocha said that by turning to the high court Maduro was effectively acknowledging that “no one believes” the CNE, adding that “Maduro knows he can count on a (court) that kneels before him.”

Post-election protests have left 24 people dead, according to rights groups, and Maduro says 2,200 people have been arrested.

He has overseen a national collapse, including an 80 percent drop in the once-wealthy oil-rich country’s GDP, amid domestic economic mismanagement and international sanctions.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Venezuelans voted on July 28 between continuity in President Nicolas Maduro or change in rival Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia amid high tension following the incumbent’s threat of a “bloodbath” if he loses.

Polls suggest the vote poses the biggest threat yet to 25 years of “Chavismo,” the populist movement founded by Mr. Maduro’s predecessor and mentor, Hugo Chavez.

But analysts say Mr. Maduro is unlikely to concede defeat, especially in the absence of immunity guarantees, with his government under investigation for human rights abuses by the International Criminal Court.

Long queues of voters formed at several ballot stations hours before polls opened at 6:00 a.m. (1530 IST) on July 28. Polls close at 6:00 p.m.

“I have been here since 4:30 in the morning, and I hope it will be a successful day,” lawyer Griselda Barroso, 54, told AFP in Caracas.

“I hope there is democracy.”

Mr. Maduro, 61, is seeking a third six-year term at the helm of the once wealthy petro-state that saw GDP drop 80% in a decade, pushing more than seven million of its 30 million citizens to emigrate.

He is accused of locking up critics and harassing the opposition in a climate of rising authoritarianism.

In a message published on social media overnight, Mr. Maduro urged Venezuelans to “Vote, vote, vote, and peace will triumph.”

After casting his vote in the capital on July 28, he vowed to “make sure” the results were respected.

His contender, Gonzalez Urrutia, a 74-year-old former diplomat, called on his compatriots to turn out in large numbers “to transform your future” in what “will undoubtedly be the most important democratic expression of the people in recent years.”

“We hope and wish that everything will transpire in peace,” he said in a video posted on social media.

Mr. Maduro lags far behind Gonzalez Urrutia in voter intention, according to independent polls, but counts on a loyal electoral machinery, military leadership and state institutions in a system of well-established political patronage.

Relying on its own figures, the government is also said to be certain of victory.

With several international election observers blocked from entering the South American country at the last minute, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for all parties to “respect the democratic process.”

“The Venezuelan people deserve an election that genuinely reflects their will, free from any manipulation. The international community is going to be watching this very closely,” Mr. Blinken told reporters in Japan.

‘Peace or war’

Days before the vote, Mr. Maduro said the outcome would decide whether Venezuela enters a period of “peace or war.”

“If they do not want Venezuela to become a bloodbath, a fratricidal civil war produced by the fascists, let us guarantee the greatest success, the greatest electoral victory of our people,” he said at a rally.

The comments drew condemnation from leaders including Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who said: “Maduro has to learn: if you win, you stay. If you lose, you go.”

Concerns were further stoked when Caracas blocked the international observers, including four ex-Presidents who had their plane held up in Panama on July 26.

‘World is watching’

Roberta Metsola, president of the European Parliament, spoke to Machado on July 27, writing on X afterward: “We are on the side of democracy. The world is watching these elections.”

On July 26, a Venezuelan NGO said the government was holding 305 “political prisoners” and had arrested 135 people with links to the opposition campaign since January.

Caracas accuses the opposition of conspiring against Mr. Maduro, whose 2018 reelection was rejected as illegitimate by most Western and Latin American countries.

Years of tough U.S. sanctions failed to dislodge the President, who enjoys support from Cuba, Russia and China.

Venezuelans are clamouring for change.

Most live on just a few dollars a month, with the health care and education systems in disrepair and biting shortages of electricity and fuel.

The government blames sanctions, but observers point the finger at corruption and mismanagement.

About 21 million Venezuelans are registered to vote.

The government has deployed tens of thousands of security forces and enforced ramped-up border control and a prohibition on public gatherings and protests.

“While the election in Venezuela will hardly be free or fair, Venezuelans have their best chance in over a decade to elect their government,” Human Rights Watch Americas director Juanita Goebertus said this week, urging the international community to “have their (voters’) back.”

The United States will ease some oil and gas sanctions against Venezuela after the South American country’s government and opposition agreed to hold elections next year.

In response to those “democratic developments,” the U.S. Treasury Department “has issued General Licenses authorizing transactions involving Venezuela’s oil and gas sector and gold sector,” and is “removing the ban on secondary trading” in debt securities, a statement from undersecretary for terrorism Brian Nelson said Wednesday.

But it also said that those authorizations could be amended or revoked at any time if the electoral deal falls through.

“Let’s turn the page, let’s rebuild a relationship of respect, of cooperation… this is my message to those in power, and to the government of the United States,” Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said, while also calling for a definitive end to the sanctions.

To uphold the agreement, the United States warned Venezuela that it must “define a specific timeline and process for the expedited reinstatement of all candidates” by the end of November, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

“All who want to run for president should be allowed the opportunity,” he said in a statement.

The agreement between Washington and Caracas comes just a day after the Venezuelan government and opposition reached a deal in Barbados — mediated by Norway — to hold elections in late 2024.

But that accord allows for the exclusion of certain candidates under Venezuelan law, which would include opposition frontrunner Maria Corina Machado.

U.S. officials speaking on the condition of anonymity on Wednesday evening, however, said they believed Caracas was planning to eventually allow such candidates to participate.

Blinken said “failure to abide by the terms of this arrangement will lead the United States to reverse steps we have taken.”

Later in the day, five jailed opposition figures were released, according to a social media post by Gerardo Blyde, who represents the opposition in talks with the government.

Among them were journalist Roland Carreno and former lawmaker Juan Requesens, imprisoned in 2018 after an attack on Maduro.

Also on Wednesday, a charter flight from Texas arrived at Simon Bolivar International Airport in Caracas carrying about 130 Venezuelan migrants, the first such deportation flight following an agreement earlier this month between the two countries.

The deal provides for the “orderly, safe and legal repatriation” of undocumented Venezuelan migrants, who until now had been deported in small numbers on commercial flights, mixed in with regular passengers.

In concrete terms, the sanctions easing means the U.S. government is re-authorizing the purchase of Venezuelan oil and gas for a period of six months, which may be renewed “only if Venezuela meets its commitments under the electoral roadmap as well as other commitments with respect to those who are wrongfully detained.”

Regarding the gold sector, no time limit has been specified, with the Treasury Department stating it seeks to reduce black market trading.

Washington is also allowing renewed trading in Venezuelan debt securities on the secondary market, although the ban on the primary market — meaning debt securities newly issued by the Venezuelan government — remains in force.

The easing of sanctions on Venezuelan oil had been eagerly awaited by the markets, leading to a fall in the price per barrel despite the war between Israel and Hamas and the risk of escalation in the Middle East.

An exact election date will be defined by the country’s National Electoral Council, according to the text of the deal.

The two sides had resumed talks seeking to end the country’s political and economic crisis, after a nearly yearlong suspension.

The opposition, backed by several countries including the United States, did not recognize Maduro’s 2018 re-election in a vote widely dismissed as fraudulent.

The following year, Washington ramped up sanctions against Caracas first imposed in 2015 over the brutal repression of anti-government protests.

But the energy crisis sparked by Russia’s war on Ukraine saw renewed global efforts to solve the crisis in Venezuela, which has the world’s largest oil reserves.

Last year, U.S. delegates went to Caracas to meet Maduro, even though Washington does not recognize him as a legitimate leader.

After initial talks between the government and the opposition, Washington granted a six-month license to U.S. energy giant Chevron.